Nine degrees celsius this morning

A cool September morning to start the day but with bright sunshine. The Fall is just around the corner and all that heat of summer is moving away from us. Since I grew up in humid southwestern Ontario I am not overly bothered by the few high humidity days in Eastern Ontario. But I must admit the air conditioning does make a huge difference although I find it cool on occasion and tend to reduce that somewhat. It is nice to feel warm in the summer and it really does help my arthritis. 

Yesterday no particular accomplishment on the Burbage or the Calne Parish Registers. I will try to get to that today. It was interesting being able to connect the Calne and Burbage Blake families with the National Archives (UK) website. I must investigate the South Newton Blake family as well to see if I can find legal evidence that they too are descendant of the Calne Blake family. Although the Pedigree Chart produced by both the College of Arms and also in the Blake ancestral chart at the Blake Museum do link the Andover Hampshire and the Calne Wiltshire Blake families it is not a proven link (mentioned on the Blake Museum Chart) and I suspect there is only a link on the female Blake side with a Blake descendant becoming part of a family at Andover in the 1300s and that line taking the Blake surname for whatever reason.  This  was the time of acquisition of surnames in a big way and the decision on a surname probably had many paths of acquisition - nice name, place name, characteristic - all of those types of methods for acquiring a surname. The Manor Books of Andover do have the Blake surname already mentioned in the early 1300s although I have not yet transcribed them I can see that the name John Blake occurs and other forenames. I played a bit with the idea that the Blake line at Andover had come from Ireland to Salisbury in the 1400s (perhaps around 1441 although need to check that emigration record) but finding the Blake surname at Andover in 1300s sort of dispels that thought as interesting as it was. 

But certainly it does give rise to thoughts about the South Newton Blake family and its ancestry. Getting Blake males to test their yDNA in England would be a most interesting pursuit but my colleague in the Blake DNA study at FT DNA has been working at that for quite a few years without a lot of success. I am hoping that the study that I added my brothers' DNA to will be productive (I forget which University now - must check on that). 

On to the day. I am up early with the sun. Lovely sunrise and September is famous for its sunrises I think; at least in my mind. The brilliant colours fill the sky just before six these days, I am not up early enough to see the sunrises in the mid summer!